The Cure
by CRMediaGal
Summary: Severus Snape has spent years seeking relief from the snake bites left behind by Nagini's vicious attack. He's exhausted every treatment imaginable, both muggle and wizarding, until he encounters Hermione Granger. What she winds up offering is something he never considered...and finds himself powerless to refuse. Written for the SSHG Gift Fest on LiveJournal. AU, Post-Hogwarts.
1. Desperation and Hope

**A/N : This was written for the 2016 SSHG Gift Fest on LiveJournal. It's three chapters in length. I've decided to cross-post it here. You can find more information about my prompt below.**

 ** _Thank you, as always, to my kind beta and friend, Brittny, for her immeasurable help. It can't have been easy putting up with reading my stuff all these years. #AmIRight? And thank you to those who are and/or might leave positivity in that Review Box, whether for this attempt or something else. It's what's kept my muse hanging on for five years, so that's gotta count for something, no? As I've so often expressed with my past storytelling efforts: without your thoughts, it isn't worth sharing._ **

**Disclaimer : _Harry Potter_ is copyrighted to and belongs to JK Rowling. I'm just playing in her sandbox. No money, just fun. Artwork is credited to lily-fox on DeviantArt and entitled, "Rooibos".**

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 **LJ Fest:** SSHG Gift Fest  
 **Giftee:** worrywart  
 **Creator:** CRMediaGal  
 **Beta(s):** Brittny  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Warning(s):** Smut, Mild Language  
 **Prompt:** Severus has spent years trying to find relief from the deep ache caused by the snake bite. He's tried Muggle physio/acupuncture, hypnosis, potions, spells, counter jinks, etc. Hermione is a specialist in your choice of unique technique, to whom Severus has been recommended. It's a last ditch effort. After a few sessions/classes the couple begin to become friends, and as Severus finally heals, they become more.

* * *

 _ **The Cure**_

 **By CRMediaGal**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Desperation and Hope**

* * *

 _This is assuredly one of your more wretched ideas; or, perhaps, the most absurd._

Severus ground his teeth together to keep from issuing what would have naturally resembled a snarl of the utmost frustration. He separated his interwoven, bony hands to flex them apart, hoping to loosen the sweaty, cramped grip that had resulted from the unpleasant sensations he was currently experiencing.

 _You did this to yourself, numbskull. Twice._ Severus squeezed his eyes shut, draped his hands over top of his abdomen, and inhaled deep, calculated breaths. _In and out. In and out. This nonsense will be over soon._

The acupuncturist had informed him at the start of these wonky procedures that there could 'be no gain without pain', whatever the bloody hell _that_ meant. He should have walked straight out of the barmy git's office then and there but, instead, he had allowed Desperation to have a go at his expense. This would be the second and last time he would suffer this humiliation, _thank you very much!_

The office was dreary-looking, cramped, and far off the beaten path, concealed in an alleyway in a seedy part of London. The blinds were kept shut and the furniture was minimal and fraying at the edges. _None of this caused you concern the first time, did it?_ Severus griped to his stubborn, irritable conscience. _Bleedin' twat._

The place smelled of a miserable mixture of disinfectants and peculiar incense Severus's large nose couldn't quite place. _Desperation lead you to this foolishness_ , he reminded himself as his fingers found themselves unconsciously tightening together once more.

His muggle practitioner spoke broken English, but that didn't bother Severus so much as the lack of patient flow— _You_ are _the only wizard daft enough to be trying this, after all!_ —as well as the fact that the office contained only one practitioner and a rather questionably young-looking assistant.

All of these red flags should have clued the brilliant, sharply shrewd Severus Snape in that this was going to be another failed attempt at sought-after relief. An alternative, muggle pseudoscience—no matter how ancient and well-regarded it may be—wasn't going to cure him of the pains brought on by a snake breed of wizarding origin. He considered himself a fool for taking yet another chance on muggle medicine, but then, Severus Snape had taken many more gambles since Nagini slaughtered him short of his life six years ago. This likely wouldn't be his final futile endeavour in pursuit of respite.

A horrible, suctioning pain at the source of Severus's grievances brought him cruelly back to the present. He tensed his shoulders and cursed an excruciating, " _Fuck_!" before it could be stopped. His body reacted instinctively, jerking away from the vacuuming suction that was clamped against his jugular. A small but firm hand quickly grabbed his forehead to prevent him from moving another inch.

"Ah, Mr Snape," a short, bald-headed Asian man with wise eyes chuckled close to his left ear. "No moving! It's painful, I know, but it works."

 _Wanna bet?_ Severus wondered but kept such challenging thoughts under wraps. He had wasted enough precious galleons on absurd remedies, both medical and magical, to cure this affliction. This, he determined this morning, was one of the worst he had tried: cupping therapy. _And also the bloody last!_ he swore off as the suctioning sensation finally subsided, though his throat continued burning as if he had gulped down too much Firewhisky in one swig.

"Lots of pain?" the seemingly amused Asian man probed as the last cup was removed.

Severus, realising that his upper body was far too stiff, forced his shoulders to slump and pried his eyes open. He sneered up at the culprit of his present misfortunes and spat between his teeth, "Yes. _Exceptionally_."

"Ah, yes. Pain is good, Mr Snape. Yes," the muggle rambled on as he and his taller, too-tight robed female assistant shuffled around Severus's reclining clinical chair, putting their funny-looking contraptions away out of sight. "Pain be worse before it be better. Pain be gone soon, yes."

Severus offered a parting scowl. "There won't be another."

The acupuncturist turned around and raised a bushy, white eyebrow at him. "No?"

" _No_." Giving a swipe to the front of his pristine, black frock coat, Severus rose gracefully out of the patient chair, nodded curtly to the doctor, and thanked him for his time. "That will be all. Good day."

"Ah... Good day, Mr Snape?"

The door to the clinical room had closed before the muggle had finished replying. He would never see the pale, gangly man with the nastiest neck wounds he had ever seen again.

* * *

Severus glanced over the sparse information in his hand, the sceptic, critical scowl lining his mouth acutely telling. His old mate, Lucius Malfoy, had supplied the address to him days ago, and he could barely make out the wizard's lazily-imparted cursive; but the information had been supplied, nonetheless, though there was not much else to go on. He supposed he was at the right place as his dark, slit-like eyes glanced between Lucius's scribbled note and the number next to the impressive iron gates several times over— _That looks like a nine but it might be a seven? Oh, of all the... Lucius, you unhelpful arse!_ —but he wasn't yet ready to take the plunge by passing through the front gates and heading up the stone steps. Severus knew his friend to be a better chap than all this, but the man's lack of full disclosure was untoward and aggravating in the extreme.

 _It was only in passing conversation the other day at Lucius's home at Malfoy Manor that the acquitted Death Eater had suggested that Severus seek therapy. "I_ have _tried therapy, Lucius, and many forms of it, in fact," Severus started intervening on him when the still suave, ever elusive wizard whipped out a quill, tore off a piece of parchment from an empty scroll on top of his desk, and began writing furiously and secretively, all whilst "tut, tut"ing at Severus under his breath._

 _He then handed Severus the address of which he was now in pursuit and briefly explained, as he escorted his guest out of his study and back to the sitting room to Floo home, "Give this person a try, Severus. I'm telling you, they made a world of difference for me."_

 _Severus flashed Lucius a frown that appeared both confounded and equally suspicious. "Who is this per—?"_

 _"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me," Lucius responded with a chuckle._

 _That wasn't exactly encouraging. Severus's scowl deepened. "Then what kind of therapy are we talk—?"_

 _"If I told you_ that _, you wouldn't go," Lucius only served to tease him further, smiling in that ambiguous, charming manner that Severus openly despised. It put his mounting reservations on edge._

 _His insides recoiled, suspecting. "I don't need a psychiatrist, Lucius."_

 _"You really think I would lead you astray?"_

 _"My afflictions aren't of the head," Severus pressed irritably, quietly._

 _"I know that, Severus." Lucius added, with boisterous laughter, "But I daresay that's debatable to some!"_

 _Severus wasn't in the mood. "Why have you failed to mention this person before?"_

 _Lucius shrugged, showcasing no offence. "I figured something else would come along and work out for you." He reached around Severus to gently pat him on the back. "I'm sorry, my friend. Do give this person a ring. They come highly recommended, but only by word of mouth, and I'd be shocked if they couldn't help you in some way."_

 _"And if they don't?"_

 _Lucius's smile was faint but nonetheless earnest. "Then we both gave it our best shot."_

 _"'_ We _'?" Severus reiterated, one eyebrow arched in inquisition._

 _Severus and Lucius had reached the sitting room fireplace, where Lucius abruptly turned his back, muttered something about farewells under his breath, and allowed Severus to see himself out. Severus stared on, thoroughly displeased as Lucius left with little to no more particulars, and settled for ringing the muggle practitioner the next morning. He could only assume it was a muggle practice, after all, seeing as Lucius had mentioned phoning for an appointment. The wacky image of Lucius Malfoy attempting to use a muggle telephone was enough to almost put Severus off the idea. Almost._

 _The female secretary on the other end had been overly jolly with Severus's inquiry and just so happened to have an opening mid-morning the following day. When Severus had probed for more information about the vague practice's services, the chipper lady's response had been curiously odd and unrevealing. "All will be explained in full upon agreeing to our patient-practitioner confidentiality agreement, Mr Snape," the sectary had sought to explain without providing more details. "We don't like to solicit our services to the general public for fear of being inundated with more overflow than our head of the office can handle. For_ you _, sir, we will be most glad to consult and see if there are any treatments we can provide you."_

 _'What a load of bollocks', Severus had thought after slamming down the phone at a local muggle booth, feeling bewildered rather than relieved. It was only with Lucius's good word in mind that he was determined to go forward with the appointment at all._

 _And desperation has led you to your newest low_ , he sourly reflected at present, a look of disgust crossing his weathered features, as Severus stepped from the sidewalk to open the iron gate.

A recognition of familiar magic ghosted over him, leaving Severus's wizarding senses tingling and his feet halting in their tracks as the gates clashed shut behind him. _Wards_. Invisible to the muggle eye, and yet, he had had to use a muggle form of communication to reach the office. This place was becoming curiouser and curiouser.

Severus climbed the three stone steps to the front door, passing by three thick pillars on either side, and entered without hindrance. The wards were growing stronger, however, scanning and reading for Severus's identity, prickling at every intuition he possessed. And that was all before he had reached the front desk, tall and imposing and half hiding the bubbly personality stationed behind it.

A bright secretary, with a sunny disposition and eye-popping, bleach blonde hair, raised her eyes and greeted him with a smile. "Mr Snape, I presume?" she inquired pleasantly.

Severus recognised the woman's voice as the same from their brief, peculiar telephone exchange the previous day. "Indeed."

"A pleasure to meet you, sir. Welcome! Do take a seat. She'll be right with you."

 _Ahhh, a 'she'. We're getting somewhere..._

Severus nodded agreeably and slithered into a nearby chair, of which there were only a handful to choose from. It didn't take long for him to launch into a rapid spiral of angsty, inner-monologues, however. Appointments were always a jittery, wretched affair and this, Severus easily presumed, would prove no different from the rest. That small droplet of Hope was already rippling and expanding through him and the longer he was permitted time to weigh the pros and cons inside his head, the more aggravating it became. He despised such relentless wishing that _something_ might come of all his painstaking efforts and persistence over the past six years, for Hope had a morbid regularity of turning around and biting him in the arse.

Severus grunted, wove his wiry arms across his chest, and made to block out this inconvenient reoccurrence by scrutinising the waiting room instead. The powder blue walls offered no sharper glimpses or hints as to where he was. Hanging posters of painfully feigned smiles of nameless faces surrounded him from all sides, ranging in age and depiction, either lying on cots or seated in clinical chairs. They grinned at a practitioner whose face was inconveniently kept out of sight; only the back of her colourless robe was seen in the corner of each and every frame.

Perplexed, and growing increasingly disquieted, Severus settled for grinding his teeth together and allowing a harsh contour to form between his eyes. His attention was soon diverted to a small wooden table to his right, sandwiched between two large windows. A handful of information cards were displayed, though their contents was unusually blank, puzzling Severus even more. A protective charm against muggles' prying eyes had obviously been charmed on the cards, prompting Severus to stand and take one for safekeeping...and to study with meticulous precision later on. Severus angled the card every which way between his long fingers but it remained curiously empty, despite his magical touch.

The cheerful secretary suddenly snuck up behind him and addressed the distracted former spy. "Mr Snape?" Severus spun on his heel, and the secretary hastily retracted at his skittish reaction. "Sorry, love; didn't mean to frighten you."

"You haven't," he snapped, fumbling as he shoved the card deep into one of his coat pockets. He was so caught off guard by the woman's interruption that his sunken cheeks flushed pink.

"Well, you can come back now. She's ready for you."

Severus made an unappreciative noise but followed the secretary through a warded steel door, entering into a narrow, low lit hallway with a series of more heavily magically barred doors to his right and left. All were closed save for the last, a small but homey-looking office decorated in warm reds, nut-browns, and dark golds on his far left. He was led directly into this room and instructed to make himself comfortable by the secretary, who hurriedly left Severus, noiselessly shutting the door behind her.

He chose not to sit as suggested, though, for his inner qualms were expanding in intensity by the moment. He stared out of a solitary window to his left, peeking between the blinds to a quiet, undisturbed London side street; but his anxieties weren't alleviated by the silence or the empty scenery.

 _This was a mistake_ , he argued with himself as his ears honed in on an annoying ticking clock hanging on the wall. _Where the hell am I? Why in the bloody hell would I agree to_ anything _Lucius suggests? Has my sheer desperation grown that preposterous that I'd consider—?_

"Hello...Severus. May I call you Severus?"

 _That voice_. That prickling force of another powerful magical being occupying this closed space with him, and not just anyone... _Dear Merlin and Circe, let me be wrong_.

Severus's shoulders straightened as he found himself hesitating to turn around and face the person behind him. After sucking in a breath, he veered about, beady eyes tearing from the window to the recognisable woman clad in a white robe standing in front of the office door. His entire body froze as he took in her presence, his dragon-hide boots fastening to the floorboards against his will.

"Merlin, strike me dead. _Now_ ," he muttered aloud, the words slipping his tongue before he could halt their release.

Hermione Granger, in all her furiously curly-haired glory, rolled her eyes at him and cast the door shut with a minor, near miss-able flick of her wrist. Her wand was then spindled in between a few thick knots of her hair, which was still as unruly as Severus remembered from when she was a swotty student of his at Hogwarts, though it was now pulled back into a ridiculous lopsided ponytail.

"Honestly, Severus," she replied in a measured, professional tone of voice that threw Severus for a loop; she sounded a touch agitated but more humoured than he believed she ought to be, "I can think of a number of people worse than _I_ whom you might come into contact with today.

"Now, won't you take a seat? I think you'll find it's more preferable to standing for the whole hour."

Severus would have Apparated from this staggering situation were he not so utterly dumbfounded by the sight of the individual standing in front of him. _Six years_. It had been roughly six years since he had last laid eyes on Hermione Granger, lauded former Gryffindor princess and (undoubtedly) brightest member of the infamous Golden Trio.

No one—at least, none of those who ran in Severus's circle, and his contact list was admittedly (and purposely) small—had seen eye or hair of Miss Granger since roughly a year after the war. Unlike her shiny, hero-clad friends, Potter and Weasley, Miss Granger had somehow managed to keep her name and her face out of the papers. No one seemed to know what she was up to these days; or, perhaps, the general public had ceased to care. She had never openly accepted her significant part in Potter's victory and had declined honours and interviews since the Dark Lord's defeat.

She looked exceptionally well, Severus considered, judging by the professional robe she donned (that happened to accentuate certain curves of the young witch's that hadn't been there in years' past), the appealing freckles that dotted the tip of her nose and cheeks, and the overall radiance in her confident demeanour. She appeared to be wearing a bit of blush and lip-gloss as well, which accented her natural glow, and carried an air of wisdom in those welcoming, caramel-coloured eyes that had been horribly naive before the war.

She was...attractive, but that was beside the point. "Very well... _Miss Granger_ ," Severus resigned, though reluctantly, stiffly, bringing his attention back to the awkward state of things at the present time.

"Oh, please," she brushed off, chuckling softly, "do feel free to call me Hermione, Severus! I prefer to keep things informal and casual around here."

Swallowing his growing confusion and discomfort, and realising he had been overtly staring at her— _How old was she now anyhow? Twenty four? Twenty five?_ —in a manner that was, in all likelihood, inappropriate, Severus inched away from the window and glanced about, uncertain of where to shift his attention to next.

Hermione didn't seem to have taken notice of her one-time professor's roving eyes, however; or if she had, she was acting entirely nonchalant and unbothered by the fact. He watched her settle into a swivelling, leather-bound chair in the centre of the room, positioned between a circular glass table that housed a feathered quill, folder, and parchment and a larger wooden one, which contained an operating tea tray. The kettle suddenly lifted itself into the air and proceeded to pour steaming hot tea into two silver cups. Traces of cinnamon and vanilla aroma infiltrated Severus's senses.

"Would you care to begin or shall I?" she politely proposed after a moment, seeing as the ex-professor had seemingly become momentarily entranced—or, perhaps, purposely redirected—by the self-serving tea set.

Severus blinked and resumed his gaze of Hermione, conveying, in not so uncertain terms, his mistrust of her intentions by frowning long and hard. The witch evidently was unfazed by this, for she simply extended a hand, pointed towards a vacant club sofa opposite her, and encouraged him to follow her lead.

Severus chewed his inner cheek, finally prying his immobile legs apart. He glided forward and took an unenthusiastic seat, his spindly frame solidifying against the back of the sofa, uneasy. Potential patient and practitioner, prior teacher and pupil, stared at one another for a lengthy pause without speaking. Severus could sense her magic radiating outward, filling the room inch by inch and poking for more details against his strong mental barriers.

Slowly, Hermione swished her wand in a circle and the quill and parchment were abruptly hovering next to her, awaiting their next instructions. Giving the instruments a short acknowledgment, the quill began scribbling madly, filling the stifling quietness with its scratchy, impulsive scrawls. Its vexing sound set Severus's teeth on edge, but he willed himself to ignore it. For now.

"I'm sure you have quite a lot of questions," she began in that calm register that was quite foreign to Severus, coaxing his dubious regard away from the moving quill and back to her charming but stern expression, "and I think we should get those out of the way before we delve into _you_ , wouldn't you agree?"

Severus's dark eyes wavered, shimmering between the fleeting wont to see himself out and coercing his flighty arse to stay on the sofa. "Quite," he gritted through clenched teeth, hardly at all ready to forge ahead. What in Merlin's beard had he gotten himself into this time?

"Well, as you can see, this is my office," she began, nonchalant, before Severus put a stop to whatever spiel she intended to try to sell him.

"What are you, Miss Granger?" he commanded ever so quietly, to which she blinked but didn't falter in answering freely.

" _Hermione_ ," she corrected with a soft smile. "I work within my own designs, through a combination of healing and muggle medicine. I find these practices have their equal, respective uses to us—that they're co-dependent in many ways—and unique to every affliction and symptom and individual circumstance."

Severus saw no point in beating around the bush and asked, instead, pointedly, "Are you a psychiatrist?"

One corner of Hermione's mouth tugged upward. "Of sorts."

Severus raised a questioning eyebrow. "'Of sorts'?"

"I'm a practitioner of many varients, Severus," she explained collectedly, "and I often combine the two based upon the patient's personal needs. I'm not of one in particular. I handle all sorts of—"

" _Are you a psychiatrist, Miss Granger_?"

Hermione paused and angled her head, her expression unnervingly unforthcoming as she surveyed his face. "Do you think you require therapy?"

"Absolutely not," Severus came back hard, affronted.

"Or antidepressants?" she pressed with further gentleness.

Severus shot the inquiring witch a wrangled look. " _I'm not depressed_."

"We shall see." Hermione gave a small nod to her working quill and it paused. "Good point. Scratch that." The quill's subsequent scraping caused one of Severus's eyes to twitch. "One of the only decent inventions that that wretched Rita Skeeter ever came up with," she mused in acknowledgement of the self-writing quill, but Severus was ready to carry on.

"Why the phone number?" he asked, hoping to side-track his heightening exacerbations.

"Because I take on muggle _and_ wizarding patients, and I prefer muggle communication since I choose to be more discreet on the wizarding spectrum. I prefer to keep my practice out of the public eye. Perhaps you can understand why?" She offered Severus a thoughtful, knowing look over. "The press can be quite...overwhelming. And bad for business."

Severus pursed his lips, both conflicted and perturbed. "I suppose I shall now have to sign some confidentiality agreement to keep your identity quiet, even if I refuse your treatment?"

Hermione smiled again. "You gave your permission when you entered my office...or you wouldn't have followed my secretary into this room, would you?"

Severus's shoulders went rigid, having sensed the witch's scanning wards earlier. "No."

"And my secretary forewarned you on the phone, I trust?"

"Correct."

"Then it's settled."

Hermione re-crossed one leg over the other, and the subtlety briefly caught Severus's wandering eye. Her legs were bare and smooth, curvaceous, and he couldn't help but consider that she had particularly fetching-looking ankles. He had no bloody business being captivated by her lower half whatsoever and, luckily, Hermione's voice dragged Severus's attentions back to where they belonged: on her face.

"Do you intend to refuse treatment; or shall we give this a try?"

Severus's insides churned with unpleasantness. The assumption of enduring another round of false hopes was dreadful, the reality of working with Hermione Granger even worse. "What are your intentions, Miss Granger?" he demanded, keeping his expression as emotionless as possible as he stared Hermione down from across an ugly shag carpet and a cup of tea that was now floating towards him.

"To get to the bottom of your afflictions and then treat them accordingly."

Severus's mouth broke out in a sneer. "I doubt you can help me."

To his surprise, she challenged him back in an unruffled voice, "Then why did you come here?"

"Because Lucius Malfoy, in his infinite wisdom, seems to think you can cure me."

"He's a good man, Lucius," came Hermione's admirable regard. Her lips curved into a peculiar grin that only compounded Severus's frustrations. Between the scarce information he had had to go on and what his friend may be privy to that he wasn't, Severus was beginning to think this whole meeting was a setup.

Severus veered off course, his curiosity hungry for more details about the reasoning behind Hermione's smile. "Why did Lucius come to see you?"

"I'm afraid I can't disclose that. That would go against patient confidentiality."

"Yet, you won't tell _me_ what exactly it is you propose to do about my treatment."

Hermione flicked her wand at the quill and it ceased jotting notes. "I can't tell you yet how I intend to treat you until I know more about what you're experiencing, Severus."

"Seems like a load of codswallop to me," Severus grumbled under his breath. He placed his arms over his chest, trying to ignore how his prized former student's first name address was garnering an unnecessary stirring in his trousers.

Hermione leaned forward in her chair, still the epitome of professionalism, and countered frankly, "You seem to say these things out of fear, Severus. What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid of _nothing_ , Granger."

" _Hermione_. And bollocks." She snorted, stunning Severus into silence. "Everyone's afraid of _something_." She considered him for a short while, in a manner that felt entirely too invasive for his liking, and he wilfully looked away. She rattled his emotional cage a little bit more with another straightforward question. "How many treatments have you tried?"

Severus kept his arms tightly crossed and mumbled towards the ground, "Virtually everything."

"Muggle medicines? Hypnosis? Potions? Acupuncture? Healing spells?"

"Yes," he whispered, his deep voice dispassionate. His eyes remained firmly glued on the carpet.

"Have any of them shown minor improvements in the pains resulting from your snake bites?"

Severus's eyes flew to Hermione's face, stricken by what she had unearthed without him telling her explicitly. "How do you know?" he snipped with defence. An uncomfortable heat was seeping up his neck and onto his cheeks, and Hermione's obvious sympathy and compassion towards him only made it more pronounced.

"I think it's an easy assumption to make, given Nagini's vicious attack. It must have had _some_ lingering effect on you, surely, whether physically or psychologically." She hesitated, drawing somewhat inward for a moment as she stated in a hushed register, "I remember that day very vividly. It was heinous; absolutely _heinous_. I... I'm sorry."

" _Whatever for_?" Severus all but snarled back, desiring nothing more than to fly out of the room. Some burly, unflinching sensation was propelling him to stay put, and he sensed that it wasn't entirely of his own free will.

Hermione's care and concern endured as she stared into his troubled, gnarly expression. "That you've continued to suffer for as long as you have. Six years is an awfully long time." She waited for a pause, and when Severus retorted nothing else, only ogled her with a mixture of fright and something more that was, as of yet, unexplainable, she pressed on carefully, delicately, "I welcome the opportunity to treat you, Severus. How about you tell me a little about your pains, what has and hasn't worked for you, and we'll go from there?"

There was a considerable pause. Then a defeated-sounding bit of closemouthed fuss echoed from the comfy sofa, and Severus reluctantly accepted Hermione's cup of tea.

* * *

 **A/N #2 : Thank you to those who review.  
**


	2. Hope and Healing

**A/N : I forgot to mention it in my original A/N but this story, being as it's only three chapters and roughly 15k in length, isn't as expanded a story as I would have preferred. I had a seriously fickle muse to contend with and time constraints in getting it in on time for the fest, so the pacing isn't my 'usual fare' with this pairing.  
**

 ** _However_ , I do hope you all enjoy the result. **

**Disclaimer : _Harry Potter_ is copyrighted to and belongs to JK Rowling. I'm just playing in her sandbox. No money, just fun.  
**

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Hope and Healing**

* * *

Hermione curled her fuzzy, pyjama-hugging legs beneath her weight on the sofa and sifted through a thick chart lying in her lap, hovering a trusty cup of hot tea close by and well within arm's reach. Her tired but hungry eyes drifted over every page, much as they had each night with diligent persistence since taking Severus Snape into her professional charge one month ago.

 _Who are you kidding, Hermione? You've been keeping a close eye on him longer than that... Well, you've_ tried _to anyway, and with not much to go on._

A black and white moving photograph torn from the pages of The Daily Prophet, supposedly snapped at the start of the wizard's short reign as Headmaster of Hogwarts over six years ago, was clipped to the inside of the wizard's file, always in sight. As had become an unmindful practice of Hermione's, she unfastened the worn image of her malnourished, weathered-looking professor, with his shoulder-length, stringy, black hair hanging forward and half-masking his hauntingly hallow eyes, and held it with care between her fingers.

 _Yes... Much longer than a month..._

Hermione sighed and turned to the next page in her clinical notes. The wizard's chart was thick and heavy, its contents consisting of a combination of Hermione's scribblings from his sessions thus far, past news clippings she had saved (some reliable but most highly farcical accounts pertaining to the mysterious man's life and ongoings), and data she had collected through her own personalised research over the years.

From his extensive chart notes, Severus Snape was undoubtedly going to be one of her toughest cases to crack, as well as one of her toughest patients to work with, if their six past sessions were any indication of the many hurdles to come. Hermione hadn't exactly made a great deal of headway over the four weeks they had been working together, for Severus's case was proving more and more puzzling by the day.

To make matters more compounding, her former professor-turned patient wasn't a particularly chatty, open book, keen on discussing the private details of his life, some of which she was beginning to think she needed to know in order to come up with more treatment options. He was precise in his replies but un-thorough in matters pertaining to his symptoms and previous treatments. The poor man really _had_ gone to extensive lengths to relieve the aches and pains brought on by Nagini's cruel mauling in the Shrieking Shack, from the more obvious choices like potion prescriptions (from both St Mungo's reliable apothecary as well as the wizard's own brewing expertise) to the incredibly bizarre like maggot debridement therapy and cryotherapy.

Hermione found her eyebrows rising at more than a handful of ministrations he had pursued. It showed his level of commitment to finding a cure for his problems, which also mirrored the true character of the man Hermione had come to infer through her personal studies, but it also conveyed the deep, prolonged severity of his suffering. He didn't have to be candid about that for Hermione to gather the saddening reality of his situation.

He was much less forthright about his feelings as they related to the attack, however; or his vilified past. Most of what Hermione knew about the man stemmed from hearsay, which had been relentlessly printed and spread about by the newspapers and general public over the years, and the facts from her friend, Harry Potter, after viewing the professor's memories in the Pensieve during the Final Battle. Hermione suspected that she wouldn't have uncovered those details of the Potions Master's life on her own had he not been convinced that he was going to die.

Then again, they had _all_ thought Severus Snape perished that night. Through some miraculous feat that wasn't fully clear—or satisfying to Hermione's formulated conjectures—Severus Snape had turned up alive days later at Hogwarts, wishing to quietly assist Minerva McGonagall in rebuilding the school; or, perhaps, it was to apologise for past transgressions. Regardless of his reasons, Hermione had been present alongside her friends and thought the wizard looked far worse for the wear, but he was alive and standing on his own two feet, stunningly enough.

Shortly thereafter, he all but disappeared from public life, refusing interviews and rarely seen outside of his home address in Cokeworth. Hermione knew she needed to delve farther into Severus Snape's psyche in order to better understand the possible stresses and emotional plagues that might be affecting his infirmity. Getting the closed-off man, who was, without a doubt, the greatest living Legilimens in the wizarding world, to readily give up his secrets was going to be arduous and terribly difficult to accomplish. Performing Legilimency was out of the question, unless Hermione was content to lose what little trust she was earning with every session.

 _You'll have to find another way to connect with him..._

Hermione anticipated from the off that her work was going to be cut out for her. She had been nervous and thrilled at the prospect of working with him. His phone call to her office had been somewhat predicted— _Dear, sly Lucius..._ —and yet, astounding given the speed at which Severus Snape made his inquiry. They had been meeting twice a week since then and, in that short but extensive period of time, none of Hermione's treatment proposals had really stuck.

Hermione began her experiments by process of elimination, maintaining a professional distance between them all the while. She started off by officially ruling out healing spells and potions as a form of remedy by unsuccessfully (and much to her former professor's subsequent berating) casting several counter jinxes and spells of her own making to no solid affect. In addition, she prescribed two potions she had sent off to an apothecary she had a long-standing relationship with to be concocted for the wizard's use, one for pain and the other for relaxation and to relieve stress, and Severus Snape had refused the latter. His defiance led to their first heated disagreement in her office on the second week of his sessions, a row that Hermione had a sneaky suspicion was going to repeat itself before too long.

 _"How am I to treat you properly if you won't follow my instructions?" she huffed when Severus confided to not having taken her potion. She placed a hand on her hip, despite the fact that she was sitting._

 _Across from her, Severus growled defiantly. "Pardon my frankness, Miss Granger—"_

 _"_ Hermione _!"_

"Hermione _," he acknowledged stiffly, with a glaring bother that nettled her, "I'm a highly trained, exceptionally skilled potion-maker. Do you honestly believe that you could conjure up an elixir that would surpass any of my own creations?"_

 _"Oh, for goodness' sake, isn't it worth—?"_

 _"Well,_ do you _?" he challenged, nostrils flaring in anger._

 _Hermione reared back. "I find your degradation of my abilities insulting, Severus."_

 _"Your arrogant assumptions that you're a far better potion-maker than I, with my some four decades of experience over you, is an insult to_ me _, Miss Granger."_

"Hermione _!" she grumbled in return. "Fine! Have it your way! But no one's trying to belittle you here, Severus. You agreed to my terms at the start."_

 _"I'm at liberty to question and deny your methods, Miss Grang—_ Hermione _, if I don't think that they're in my best interests!"_

 _For the first time since the start of their sessions, Hermione's temper surged and, to Severus's growing bafflement, he was finding the spitfire that erupted from the petite witch, rather, a turn on. "Then you're a fool, Severus Snape," she denounced him through a most disagreeable hiss, "in addition to pointlessly stubborn!_ You _are the one infringing upon and delaying your own recovery with that rubbish mentality!"_

 _Severus's eyes hardened, and Hermione's gut reaction was to recoil. It was as if she was a skittish, eager-to-please first year again, standing by her simmering cauldron at the front of Severus Snape's Potions class whilst he loomed over her work, shooting down her every effort to earn his respect._

 _"A fool am I?" he whispered rather than shouted, which made his cutting remarks, to Hermione, all the worse. "I believe my most foolish error in all of this was turning to_ you _for help."_

 _"All right, Severus, enough," she quickly pleaded, wanting to emit calm back into her office through use of her magic. Her feathered quill came to a stall. "This bickering back and forth is getting us nowhere. We've gotten terribly off track here—"_

 _"You're really so certain that you can cure me, are you?" he barrelled on, knocking Hermione off her guard for a moment._

 _She could practically feel the prickling of the wizard's freshly incredulous magic turning from her and forced patience. "Don't goad me, Severus, and don't speak down to me either. I'm no longer your student; I'm your practitioner. We're equals in this room, do you hear?_

 _"I_ want _to help you," she insisted when he ground his teeth together without reply, "or I would have dismissed you before we even had the opportunity to meet in person. I ask that you put your personal scruples about me aside for a time and have an open mind to my suggestions. That's the only way we're going to make any headway: together."_

 _Severus was stubbornly mute after that, providing Hermione only occasional nods, shakes, and grunts in answer to her follow up questions. She allowed for this bit of petulance, however—'It beats him trying to get under my skin every minute that we're in each other's company, intolerable man!'—and, by the end of their third meeting, she had convinced him to try her elixir over the course of the next week and document its effects._

 _The potion hadn't worked, and the man was obnoxiously smug about the fact in one or two sessions that followed, but, thankfully, he dropped bating her after a while—or, at least, lessened his bite—finding that Hermione Granger wasn't so easily rustled to retaliate. Perhaps her words had gotten through to him?_

 _We can only hope_ , Hermione mused as she stared down at the crinkled photograph in her hand. _Intolerable man..._

It was all part of her scheme, after all—she needed to gain Severus Snape's trust and, hopefully, stimulate him to open up and offer a glimpse into his subconscious—but it was trying to get him to talk to her as openly as she would like. She didn't mind the challenge, of course, but even Hermione Granger found it inconvenient and sometimes damn near impossible to hold her tongue in his presence.

She refused to lose sight of their aim, however: to uncover a successful method of treatment that would help the poor man to heal. He had been living for far too long in such quiet, ongoing suffering, and that much was plain by his symptoms, which included a feebler, hoarser voice quality that was tragically unlike the rich, smooth baritone Hermione remembered from her school days, to pain with swallowing and, at times, communicating outright. There was also a general ache and discomfort he described, which spread throughout his body, and tended to come on without reason or warning.

"If only I could figure out the missing link!" she spat, throwing down her notes from that day's session in mounting frustration. She unknowingly held tight to the photograph, though.

Her latest focus had been to try the use of certain magical and mundane plants on the source of Severus Snape's problems: the snake bites themselves. Keeping a respectable distance, and using hand gloves whilst smearing the elements onto the wizard's throat, Hermione relied on her trusty feathered quill to record every minor reaction that might result from her efforts. Neville Longbottom had been generous enough to mail samples from the greenhouse at Hogwarts at Hermione's request, and Severus Snape had acted unenthused and unimpressed by her newest methods, as well as where the rare plants had come from; but he offered little opinion outside of a low, infrequent mutter or sneer during the process. _That_ spoke volumes from Hermione's perspective and she readily ignored him.

Alas, there had been no positive results from the exercise, though no unpleasant side effects either. Hermione had ended up visibly slumping in disappointment. Another option off the table, to be scratched out by her quill.

To add to her misery, Severus Snape was as subdued and as quiet as ever at the end of this most recent failed venture. It seemed that the poor man was beyond capable of even being disappointed anymore. It was discouraging to her but still too early for Hermione to throw in the towel.

 _What would be the point in allowing Severus Snape to one-up me and prove his point that I can't, in fact, cure his suffering?_

Faint purring at Hermione's side distracted the disgruntled witch from her reeling thoughts. Her fuzzy, old familiar, Crookshanks, suddenly ambled over and pushed his way underneath her arm, demanding his own private session in the form of proper pets and scratches. "Oh, very well," Hermione consented with ease, chuckling contentedly as she rubbed the top of the cat's head with her free hand. The cat's purring intensified and his front paws stretched out over top of Severus Snape's file, blocking his master from her incessant reading. He noticed the photograph she was holding and sniffed at it, offering an air of indifference.

"I'd better come up with something soon, Crooks," Hermione proceeded to ramble, staring at Severus Snape's image at length whilst her cat squinted his yellow, intelligent eyes up at her. "I'm beginning to wonder if some form of mind therapy is what Severus needs. He claims that he's undergone hypnosis before, but I wonder if whoever performed it on him wasn't able to penetrate his mental blocks. Surely, he's had those in place for...goodness knows how long! He might have unknowingly blocked them out without intending to."

 _Or purposely so_ , her conscience smartly countered. Hermione clipped the photograph back into place and dropped her chin into her hand, dissatisfied. "How the hell am I going to reach that man, Crooks? He's impossible! And I'm fairly certain he _still_ doesn't care for or respect me after all these years."

* * *

"Hello, Severus! Have a pleasant weekend?"

Severus quirked an eyebrow at his excessively chirpy practitioner, who came bustling into her office looking marginally dishevelled, and yet, as had so often been the case, she acted entirely unaware of not presenting the part of a well groomed, well put-together woman with a prospering career. The contrasting blend of naivety and maturity were a fascinating blend, and Severus had made it a habit since the two had re-established themselves a month ago of making Hermione Granger's every facet his personal investigation.

The key was not to let on of such intimate observances. Severus figured that shouldn't be too hard.

One thing was certain: his brightest one-time pupil was either becoming quirkier as she aged or was just... Well, she was enticing and off colour, there was no doubt about that. He hadn't thought much of anything of the young witch whilst she was at Hogwarts— _Other than that she was such an unbearable swot!_ —but now _everything_ about Hermione Granger as an adult was confoundingly magnetic.

Hope reared its ugly head every moment the lonely wizard was in her presence nowadays and this day, at the start, was proving to be much the same. He stared on as Hermione shuffled into the room, paying no mind to being scrutinised. Her hair was a disastrous mop of frizz, swept every which way by the city's turbulent, autumn breeze. The maddening curls were tamed only by a thick, silver clasp at the back of her head that seemed to be holding on for dear life. She unloaded a satchel that resized itself as it thudded loudly onto her glass desk. Her cheeks were a healthy pink flush and her attractive high heels clicked excitedly as she hurried towards him, clutching his chart to her bosom, and plopped into her chair with a heaving but easygoing sigh. A hint of cleavage where her blouse was ruffled and unbuttoned teased the wizard's sights, and Severus willed himself to keep his eyes on her blithe demeanour rather than her small, potentially pleasant and perky tits.

Severus almost forgot to answer the witch's question until their eyes suddenly met. He stuttered a strained, quiet, "Fair enough."

"Oh? Just fair?" Hermione prodded casually as she sorted through some papers for something towards the back of his chart. The contents were cleverly charmed so that he couldn't read whatever she was jotting down about him. He wasn't overly concerned about that, however, for Hermione Granger was a far more interesting subject than him. "Do anything fun?" she continued to prod as she found whatever it was she was looking for. She prompted her quill and parchment to begin writing with a swish of her wand and placed her eyes steadily on her patient.

Severus shot her an incongruous stare. "'Fun'?" He felt an utter knob head for repeating the word out loud.

"Yes," Hermione stressed, breaking into a giggle. "Take in any sights? Any entertainment venues? A good book, perhaps, that you might consider recommending to me?"

"I wasn't aware that there would be need to discuss the boring, uneventful affairs of my personal happenings, Miss Gran— _Hermione_."

This time, Hermione met Severus's dubious-looking gaze with reservation. Despite his somewhat testy nature, she tried to keep her spirits high. "It's called _conversation_ , Severus." What little of the wizard's pallid cheeks that were viewable reddened on the spot. "It's quite fun and engaging to do. You can feel free to practice on me anytime you wish."

"Cheeky," he growled lowly, taken aback by her banter; or was it friendly ribbing at all?

"Tea?" she suggested as the kettle on her opposite side began to steam on command.

"No, erm, thank you. None for me today."

It had become an expectancy of Severus to accept tea when Hermione offered it at the start of his sessions, and her shrewd senses picked up on the alteration straightaway. She back-pedalled on the polite conversation she had been trying to hone between them and went straight to the heart of the matter.

"Did you experience any pains this weekend?"

"Yes."

"With drinking? Swallowing?"

"Yes."

Hermione didn't miss how the man's sallow cheeks tended to keep gaining more colour when he was the topic of conversation. It was endearing to her but also somewhat disheartening, conveying how ill at ease the war hero was at being thoughtfully scrutinised, even by her.

"Did you log these incidents for me? And your drinks and your meals?"

Hermione fleetingly looked down at his chart and didn't catch his eye roll, but she certainly detected the annoyance in his scratchy voice when he answered. "But, of course. As you wished."

Hermione reached forward in her chair to accept the pieces of parchment Severus had outstretched to her and their fingers briefly brushed skin to skin for the first time. There was a flicker of electricity that sparked between patient and practitioner, enough for the pair of them to lock eyes for a moment, as if wanting to confirm if what they had just felt separately had, in fact, been whole and unified. And then, like passing smoke, it disappeared.

Hermione settled back into her chair, as did Severus on the couch, and he waited for her to speak again, listening as the witch made incoherent mumbles under her breath. His drink and food intakes weren't especially surprising to her, but that didn't stop Hermione from expressing an opinion.

"You know, it's not my place to offer nutritional advice, Severus, but you have ghastly poor eating habits."

Severus's mouth twitched. "I beg your pardon?"

"Does anyone cook for you?"

"No, I have no need—"

"I would certainly hope you didn't employ a house-elf," she issued with both warmness and warning, not missing how Severus's mouth formed a cross line, "but, really, are there any starches and carbs you _don't_ eat?"

"Oh, who gives a ruddy two shites about that?" he argued, tossing a piece of hair out of his eyes. "What's life worth if you can't enjoy certain luxuries such as food?"

Hermione's smile expanded. "Enjoying them to the point of excess seems counterproductive if one wants to live a long and healthy life. More to the point, how in Merlin and Circe do you stay so _trim_?"

Severus drew back on the couch, shocked by the reference to his slim figure. She was undoubtedly smiling at him, and it almost looked like sweet-measured teasing on her part. The knots in his stomach unfurled and fluttered, and his defences couldn't help but to cushion.

"High metabolism," he intoned, his delivery flat and non-humoured, to which she snorted and shook her head.

"I envy you. But we'll have to figure out a solution to your swallowing problem. Please, do try this tea. I actually made it myself and especially for you, in fact. I'm learning how to brew my own tea from scratch, so I'd appreciate your opinion. What I used for this blend might help soothe the aftereffects of your throat from overuse."

 _Doubtful_ , Severus thought but readily kept to himself.

Hermione filed the logged information away into Severus's chart whilst he waited, expecting the spot of tea to float towards him at her command. It didn't glide towards him this time, however. Instead, Hermione rose out of her chair, walked the short distance between them, and handed the cup to him herself.

Severus startled and begrudgingly, hastily, accepted the tea, his hand brushing hers one more time. That same jolt of _something_ passed between them, its sensation far more mystical than magic, but in the span of a few seconds that it took Severus to amass the courage to peer up into Hermione's face, she had retreated back to her chair.

Severus frowned into his cup. "You needn't trouble yourself with such tedious matters as making special tea for my sake."

He didn't catch the down and out look Hermione projected his way at that, for the wizard was suddenly taken by a certain whiff from the cup she had given him. The fine, underlying traces of cinnamon and vanilla, which seemed to spring from Hermione's own scent,—Severus had smelled it moments ago when she approached him—lingered with the tea, penetrating his sharp senses.

The aroma was oddly comforting and, alleviated by its presence, Severus sipped daintily from his cup and closed his eyes, allowing the tea to trickle down the back of his throat. His usually tense upper body slowly melted into the back of the sofa, tight shoulders slouching and unravelling before Hermione's eyes.

"Better?" she inquired after a pause. She knew it absurd to think that mere tea could somehow cure her patient of his afflictions, but she hadn't seen him quite this relaxed before. It was a welcoming development, even if an awfully small one in the grand scheme of things.

A strange, questioning expression emerged when Severus opened his eyes. They widened slightly as he met her gaze and breathed, sounding in all sorts of disbelief, "Yes, in fact..."

Hermione jerked upright. " _Really_?" She gasped as her quill's scribbling livened beside her, writing with fresh fervour, "Well, that - that's marvellous! I must say, I'll have to make it again! As a matter of fact, I'll send you home with a supply today! Yes, yes... You will have to drink this more regularly and we shall see how your body responds. What are your symptoms now, Severus?"

Severus blinked, further astonishment washing over his newly serene facial features. He stared at one of his hands, flexing and balling it several times. "I feel... I feel calmer... My throat's not as sore..."

"Oh, how splendid! This is good news for us!"

Severus sat still, utterly dazed and perplexed, as Hermione hopped to her feet and began buzzing around her office, jabbering with all sorts of fresh excitement and without pause. Severus didn't mind it so much and that, in itself, shot off all sorts of red flags in his mind. Hermione Granger's unabating chatter, especially at present, should have vexed his bleeding ears to the point of combustion, and yet, he wasn't all that agitated; not by the sound of her voice, certainly, or the smell of her perfume. Why hadn't he taken note of it before? Was it because of the barrier she normally kept between them, and for which he had appreciated the safe distance between them?

What did it matter now? Listening to the witch prattle on and on as she made eager use of her wand, putting together a large supply of tea bags for him to take home that were all supposedly of her own supply, he now felt warmed, soothed...

 _What in the bloody hell's going on?_

Severus barely registered Hermione's avid explanation of the next form of treatment they would be experimenting with that day: phototherapy. He was still rather dazed and distracted, even as she got down to business, _Accio_ 'ing wonky muggle lasers into her office to use on his snake bite scars. All the while, she was adrenalised, speaking and filling the silence, unlike in sessions' past, whilst maintaining the same measure of distance she normally preferred as she worked over him.

The newfound Hope he and Hermione had hopped onto at the beginning of that advancing meeting was mostly deflated by its end, for the phototherapy Hermione proposed proved another dead end in a growing list of insufficient results. The tea, for instance, left more questions than answers, and Severus could perceive the disappointment from her latest experiment in Hermione's face once he went to take his leave.

"Don't trouble yourself too much over it, Hermione," he implored, wishing to offer her comfort, though he wasn't sure why; she stared up at him, those pretty, honest eyes flashing their despondence. She was still such a Gryffindor, he pondered, and so unable to control her emotions. "I've come to accept the terms of what I'm to endure in this life. I hope, in time, you will, too."

"I'm not giving up on you, Severus," she pushed back with feeling, reaching out a hand to suddenly squeeze his arm; Severus stiffened under her touch but couldn't withdraw, his eyes boring steadfastly into hers, "and neither should _you_." She added before he could will his legs to step away, "Be sure to drink more of that tea. Twice a day until I say otherwise."

That palpable spark at her touch, as well as that recognisable, trailing scent of hers, thwarted some of Severus's inner discord. Just like that, Hope had been restored, and he determined that he would allow it to laugh in his face in the coming days if Hermione's tea didn't provide him the relief it promised that day.

* * *

 _Do it. You've been muddling over this for two wretched days. Just bloody well do it, you coward._

Severus snarled and bore his teeth, spooking an elderly woman who was passing by on this vacant street on the outskirts of town. The old lady, wearing a brown trench coat and cap, and whom Severus recognised to be a distant neighbour of his, Mrs Fuller, offered a disapproving scowl and quickened her pace towards home.

Ignoring the detrimental nerves in his gut, Severus stepped into the bright, red telephone booth, picked up the muggle contraption, and dialled Hermione's office number. For a moment, he prayed to Merlin and all the gods he could think of off-handedly that the secretary would inform him that Hermione was out for the day and that he would have to leave a message. As luck would have it, though, she was available to speak to him. Hope, it would seem, was hell-bent on guffawing at him yet again.

"Severus! How are you?" she answered merrily when her voice clicked in on the other end.

"Erm, hi. Hello. I'm well," he fumbled in reply, lowering his eyes to his boots, as if the witch was standing right there in front of him.

"Just well?" She sounded worried. That was an unfamiliar sensation. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, erm, fine. Yes, fine. How - How are you?" He cringed and clonked the telephone against his head, almost failing to hear Hermione's response.

"I'm doing well... Has the tea been calming you? Easing the soreness in your throat?"

"It has."

"Wonderful! Oh, that's fantastic! This is such a surprise, Severus, but I'm pleased to hear it! I've been going over the ingredients again and I think—"

"That's, erm," he paused to inhale a shaky breath, "that's what I wished to discuss with you."

"Oh?" she returned curiously.

"I wondered..."

"Yes?"

"I've been attempting to...to recreate your tea here in my home, but I seem to be missing something."

"Oh! Well, that's no bother. I can—"

"Would you care to discuss this some more over lunch?" he blurted out, his voice cracking and quieting as he spoke. "Tea or - or coffee, perhaps? At... At my place?"

There was a short break on the other end, but it felt excruciatingly long to Severus. Painfully long, in fact. _This was a mistake_ , his mind panicked, his heart thumping wildly against his chest. He could feel sweat forming on his brow and at the back of his neck and tried not to breathe too anxiously into the speaker part of the phone. _You're a bleedin' twat. Insolent dunderhead. This was all a bad, blasted mist—_

"I'd love to, Severus," her cheerful reply unexpectedly cut through, stunting the wizard's inner damnations. His heart all but collapsed into the pit of his stomach. "How does tomorrow sound? My weekend's wide open, so whatever works for you."

"I, erm, yes, yes. Tomorrow would be fine." Had he laughed? He could barely believe what he was hearing, so it seemed ridiculous _not_ to laugh.

Hermione, on the other hand, didn't sound fazed. "Eleven o'clock all right with you then?"

"Yes, yes, that's fine. Erm, my address is—"

"I have it, remember?" she reminded him.

To his razor-edged hearing, it sounded as though she might be smiling, but Severus wasn't willing to put such aspirations into this novel Healing he had been experiencing of late. He felt uplifted, dare he even admit to himself, happy?

"Oh, erm, yes, of course," he muttered gratefully. "I'll...see you tomorrow then?"

"Looking forward to it! Goodbye, Severus."

"Goodbye...Hermione."

* * *

 **A/N #2 : Thank you to those who review. Last chappie will be up sometime this coming weekend.**


	3. Healing and Love

**A/N : Because a few folks have commented on this particular plot line surrounding Severus Snape and the pain of dealing with the aftermath of the snake bites, and in case any other readers out there are searching for more stories along these lines, feel free to check out my on-going _Unquestionable Love_ series, of which the original story in particular (but some of the others as well) centres around this AU scenario. /end of shameless self-plug/  
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 **Thank you very much to everyone who has reviewed and followed this little story along to its conclusion. Here's the final installment and, well, this chapter is why I had to go with an M rating.  
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 **Disclaimer : _Harry Potter_ is copyrighted to and belongs to JK Rowling. I'm just playing in her sandbox. No money, just fun.  
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* * *

 **Chapter 3: Healing and Love**

* * *

Hermione yelped and halted in her tracks, unexpectedly needing to stabilise her footing. Fractured, uneven stone in the sidewalk had sent her nearly tripping sideways into the street. No muggle vehicles were coming or going, but slamming her face into pavement wouldn't have been an all too thrilling way to start her day with her 'date'.

 _It's_ not _a date! Um...right?_

With a flush of embarrassment, Hermione hurriedly glanced from left to right, finding (thankfully) that the street was deserted, save for a few billowing chimneys that suggested life existed in these parts. The two Styrofoam cups she was carrying almost spilt during her mishap, their contents practically ruined had Hermione not _just_ managed to right them, along with her clumsy legs, at the last possible second. She cursed under her breath, straightened her flustered self out, and continued her cautious meandering up the steady incline, keeping a watchful eye out for a certain address.

 _Not a good way to start this off, Hermione. Not. At. All. And why are you nervous anyhow? Focus!_

A seemingly endless series of brick row-homes lined both sides of the street, their curtains drawn and windows dirtied or fogged up. Cokeworth, which Hermione had conveniently transported herself to by way of Apparation seconds ago, didn't leave much of an impression on her. It appeared to be a small, run-down, forgotten town, with old muggle houses nestled around a crumbling factory viewable at the top of the hill.

In the distance, a few dogs howled, setting the eerie quietude of this sleepy village. Stray cats scurried across the road in front of Hermione, scattering from house to house in search of left over garbage from the bins. The area was depressing, frankly, and Hermione honed all of her attention on locating Severus Snape's home as swiftly as possible. The cold was becoming more and more biting against her exposed skin, and the dreary skies above suggested that the chance of rain was imminent. She had no wish to get caught in a downpour when she had gone to _some_ efforts today to look fetching for her appointment.

 _Appointment, Hermione_ , her anxious mind stressed. _Appointment, remember?_

As Hermione crossed to the next block, she was beginning to wonder if she was on the wrong street entirely when an imposing figure, clad in black and unmistakable, emerged onto his front stoop some three houses away. Hermione brightened and quickened her pace. Her insides were a sudden ricocheting ball of nerves, and she couldn't quite figure out why. Severus Snape hadn't been very specific about their get-together on the phone, but that didn't imply that this was anything more than a meet up...did it?

 _Nonsense! You're meeting to discuss his_ treatment _, Hermione. That's your nerves again. Get a hold of yourself!_

Pushing that disconcerting thought to the back of her mind, Hermione made, instead, to study her patient's outward appearance as she shuffled closer. He looked markedly better than the last time she had seen him, only a few days prior. There was a little more colour to his cheeks and, unless she was grossly mistaken, he appeared to be smiling, though it was tough to tell with his curtain of hair flopped forward and somewhat concealing the shape of his mouth. The expression in his eyes, too, was as confounding to decode as ever.

"You found the place all right, I trust?" he inquired once she had reached the front of his place, which appeared as bleak from the outside as all of the others on this street. He stepped down the three or four steps to politely take the Styrofoam cups from Hermione's hands.

She willingly obliged, nodded, and resized the satchel that was slung over one of her shoulders. She thought she caught those midnight irises glimmering for a moment at her but concluded that it might have just been her imagination; or the short break in the clouds. "Yes!" she exclaimed happily, forcing down her jitters. "No problems at all."

They stared on, hesitant to look away but not necessarily knowing what to do next. Fighting the anxiety manifesting within, Hermione made the first move in greeting. It was utterly foolish to be so on edge, she determined, and, seeing as she was on fairly even terms with the wizard these days, what could it hurt? She stepped forward, raised herself onto tiptoe, and pressed a feathery kiss to one of Severus's cheeks. She caught his flicker of surprise and drew back, noticeably blushing. Perhaps that had been too forward.

 _Well done, Hermione!_ Wanting to brush past that bit of awkwardness as quickly as possible, Hermione asked in haste, "How are you, Severus?"

"I'm, erm, well, thank you," he croaked out, apparently still recovering from her friendly salutation. He grunted to settle his voice. "And you?"

"Delighted to be here."

Severus's normally harsh expression softened at that. "Thank you for coming."

"Oh, it was my pleasure!"

Hermione was grateful when Severus finally whirled around and retreated towards the front door, prompting her to follow. "Come in," he entreated over his shoulder. "Feel free to drop your things wherever you'd like."

Severus noiselessly shut the door behind Hermione once she entered his home. Her eyes were too busy squinting, trying to make out her darkened surroundings, to take another step farther out of the foyer and into the long, narrow hallway. Severus's next words recaptured her attention, however. "May I take your coat?"

"Oh! Yes, thank you."

A gentle skimming of Severus's fingertips gracing over the nape of her neck stopped Hermione cold. She froze in place, every hair coming to stand on end. That mystifying spark, felt previously in Hermione's office—and which she hadn't been able to get out of her mind since—coasted over her once more as Severus effortlessly drew her coat off of her shoulders and down her arms.

After gathering her wits, Hermione turned around and saw him placing it on a hanger, his wiry hands lingering on the material for a split moment longer than was probably necessary, and cocked her head. A theory had been formulating in her mind in recent days, ever since they had first physically come into contact with each other, but she was far from ready to expose it yet. Rather, she was hoping that the wizard's own behaviour today would confirm—or (regrettably) contradict—the strength of her hypothesis.

"You shouldn't have," his rough, deep voice cut into Hermione's musings. He was regarding the Styrofoam cups she had brought and whiffing at the steam rising from the hole in the lids. They had been hanging in the air whilst he took her coat but were now safely back in his hands. His subtly gratifying expression indicated that he recognised the tea as one of her own creations and that was pleasing to capture for herself.

"This is a slightly different blend," Hermione explained, with a wider smile. "I figured you might get sick of the other one before too long. Besides, we should try various kinds and see how you fare with them."

The right corner of Severus's mouth minimally tugged upward. "That's kind of you."

"Oh, Severus, it's not a bother at all. It's my _job_."

"Right... Of course."

For a fleeting moment, their fingers ghosted over each other as Severus handed one of the cups back to Hermione. The exchange felt nerve-wracking, exciting in a manner that Hermione wasn't sure was approachable yet,— _If at all!_ her frantic conscience called to mind—and certainly not until she was assured of Severus's sentiments.

Thus, Hermione willed the reaction away as best as she could. She couldn't read the man's façade, only deduce that his demeanour was becoming more and more relaxed with each passing moment.

Severus's gaze suddenly broke from hers. He turned and stepped into the corridor off of the stairs, where a warded door to his right opened at his wordless command. A few stray, untidy hairs fell into his eyes when he glanced Hermione's way, causing the butterflies in her stomach to flutter against her will.

"Please follow me," he encouraged softly. "We can talk in my library."

"Oh! All right."

Cradling her cup of tea, Hermione's hungry eyes swept past an unlit, dull palette of a parlour room to her left and an unidentifiable room at the far end of the hall in favour of the wizard's personal library, all too eager for what they would find. She was easily overcome once she stepped inside.

The room expanded once Hermione entered, the wards lifting to reveal its inspiring scope and size, and she let out several audible gasps. Severus Snape's massive library may just have rivalled Hogwarts'. Stacks upon stacks of book shelves lined every wall space, jutting out to many rows across the expansive room, and towered several feet above their heads. Some tomes were in the midst of re-stacking themselves as Hermione stepped towards the centre and made a complete circle, intent on not missing a single detail.

Near the opposite wall was a handsome oak desk in front of a single window, as well as a couple leather chairs, a sofa, and a charmed fireplace. Hermione was so engrossed with the space that she hadn't realised how much she was openly snooping until Severus spoke again, bringing her senses round. "You can borrow that one if it suits your fancy."

Hermione jumped back, suddenly aware that she was looming over the wizard's desk and examining one of his books that was splayed out in plain view. "Oh! I - I'm sorry," she stammered, blushing to the roots of her hair. "That was rude of me. I didn't mean to—"

"Not at all." She thought he smirked, but the enticing visual faded too fast for Hermione to commit it to memory. "These are second-hand muggle books I picked up in Tewkesbury yesterday on the apparent medical benefits of varying tea extracts. I thought I might find something useful in them to explain my relieving symptoms with the tea you've made." He provided her a curt, encouraging nod. "Please, help yourself."

With a relieved smile, Hermione moseyed sheepishly back to where she had been and put down her cup. She grabbed the highest tome in the scattered pile of books and began to peruse the first few pages that were opened to her. The book smelled wonderfully dated, and yet, there was another scent that was warm and catching that had nothing to do with the text itself. Hermione soon realised, with another severe blush, that the fragrance she recognised belonged to her patient.

Severus, unmindful of this private observance, took the short silence that followed to sample Hermione's latest tea blend, eying the witch considerately over the lid of his cup all the while. The sudden, pretty pink tint to her cheeks was compelling, and his heart thumped a tick faster at its emergence. _This isn't a ruddy date, Severus_ , he reminded himself, and somewhat sorely, as he admired her from the opposite side of the room. Adding to the witch's stirring effect on him was the strangely peculiar hip-hugging jeans, grey booties, and v-shaped, yellow sweater Hermione was wearing rather than the formal outfits he was accustomed to seeing her in.

It was a welcoming observance from where he stood, with his back leaning comfortably against one of the stacks. Severus had just peered down into his cup to take another sip when Hermione's eyes switched to him. Their intense gazes reconvened, and Severus was a touch unnerved to find Hermione appraising him in the same contemplative manner he had been doing moments before. She slowly closed the book and, in typical Granger-like fashion, hugged it to her chest. Her satchel was still draped over her left shoulder, too.

"You seem to have narrowed down the roots and herbs I used without me telling you so," she remarked moments later, her smooth brow furrowing.

"You sound surprised?"

"Not really, but..." Her words trailed off, leaving Severus to angle his head and wait. Hermione lowered her eyes, feeling an uneasy heat trickling up her neck, and when she felt somewhat able to look at him again, she bashfully raised her head. "I find myself a tad confused as to why I'm here?"

Hermione was relieved when the man's thin mouth twisted slightly at the edges, enticing her. "I consider it my objective to know what exactly I'm dealing with. I thought we should discuss these matters in person."

"Right..." She still sounded uncertain, but it was her turn to smirk. "Cheeky, Professor."

"Not anymore," he deadpanned. Hermione stilled, propelling Severus to inch away from the book shelf and take a step closer to her, grasping his cup of tea in one hand. "I was right then?" he probed after a brief pause.

The question caught Hermione off guard. "Come again?"

"About the ingredients."

"Oh!" Realising that she was still clutching his book, Hermione tried to put it down without fumbling. She failed miserably and slammed it on top of the others louder than she had intended. When she turned around to face him, some of her confidence from earlier had waned. She was also a shade brighter in the face. "Close," she answered, and Severus arched a provoking eyebrow. She smiled, tapped the book cover behind her, and stated gently, "Finger root, not green ginger."

"Ahhh, I see..." His murmur was settling, soft, even a touch impressed. "Clever."

Hermione's smile stretched. "I hope you mean that, sir."

"I do." He bowed his head with reassurance.

"'Cause you didn't used to."

Severus's advancement stalled but for a moment, his dark eyes ostensibly game as they shimmered against a cursory fragment of light reflected by the window behind his guest. "With all due respect, you were a nuisance back then."

"Ahhh...but not anymore."

A quiver of acknowledgment—lively, yet passive—passed between them, much like whispers of unspoken incantations that could be sensed from each other but not heard by the human ear. They each stared without blinking, supposedly waiting on the other to initiate the next move.

With a bit of fresh conviction and another vivacious grin, Hermione was the first to tear her gaze from Severus's in order to retrieve something from inside her satchel. In the short span of time that it took her to withdrawal a file Severus, at once, recognised—the thick patient chart the witch had been writing down notes about him in for weeks—he was standing closer to her than ever, near enough to touch but not infringing upon Hermione's personal space.

Hermione started, her re-established poise displaced. "I, erm, brought all my notes with me, in - in case you wished to go over them?" she proposed, tense, as Severus's sable irises seemed intent to draw her in. "You've had some re - remarkable changes in the past few days. Perhaps it's best if we..."

"Yes?" he quietly pressed when Hermione didn't expound her unfinished thought.

All of sudden, Hermione felt tongue tied. She watched as Severus eased forward, every small movement careful and precise, and realised that she could no longer breathe. From this angle, she could more easily admire the man's surprisingly long eyelashes. How had she not noticed them before? She blinked several times and unconsciously licked her lips when the recognition would not disappear.

"That - That's why I'm here, isn't it? To discuss your progress?" she stressed, questioned, despising the uncharacteristically feeble delivery of her own voice.

"Quite," came his returning reply, even tamer than hers.

By now, Hermione's nerves had completely immobilised her. She stared helplessly up at her professor-turned patient, who had consumed her thoughts almost every waking moment for longer than she dared express to what would surely be the wizard's own horror, and prayed like mad that her instincts weren't about to turn her into the biggest fool.

"I'm sorry," she professed in a tantalising, trembling whisper, "was - was I mistaken about our...meeting?"

To her breathless astonishment, Hermione, at last, glimpsed a full smile from him. "Only a little."

His confession was suggestive, holding a tint of amusement to its conveyance that stopped Hermione's heart. His voice, too, sounded still rough to her sharp hearing but not as painfully hoarse as during their last encounter.

The professional side of her brain had just connected that joyous revelation to the rest of her preoccupied mind when, in a whirlwind, everything spun upside down: her vision, her tumbling thoughts, her invigorated heartbeats...

A pair of warm, stunningly petal-soft lips touched hers, shy but wishful. Hermione's heart all but bounded into her throat and she might have made a strangled noise against Severus's mouth, and yet, the spine-tingling sensations that spread like a stream through the rest of her body stunted all rational thought and behaviour. She pounced back against his mouth, lips zealously pushing for more of his taste, matching his appetite for further exploration.

It was mere seconds before Hermione had sunk much of herself into him, feeling weightless, airless, as though she was levitating towards the stars. Unbeknownst to her, she was caught by a sturdy arm which wrapped around her back, keeping her snug and secure and, most importantly, close.

Hermione could hardly believe it. Was this really happening? Bugger all, she could barely fathom the fact that she was sharing a kiss with none other than Severus Snape. _We're snogging!_ her mind kept screaming in sheer delight. _We're actually_ snogging _! In his library? Goodness, is that...? Is his hand on my tit? Ohhh...but he smells and tastes so fucking good! Yes! Again!_

Just as she was being overtaken by a series of lustful emotions that rivalled a violent Quidditch match of epic proportions, ranging from alarm to desire to panic to enrapture, their heated, passionate exchange was over as speedily as it had begun. The oddity of a steaming liquid substance began burning Hermione's chest. She lurched back, forcing their lips apart, and cried out. Severus was busy cursing and summoning something with his wand as it dawned on Hermione that he had unintentionally spilt hot tea all down her front.

Before she could properly assess the damage, however, Severus was sputtering an assortment of apologies and dabbing at her bosom with a handkerchief. Hermione jerked and tried to push his fidgety hands away, though to little effect.

"It's all right, _really_! It's all right!" she insisted, but he fought her efforts.

"I'm such a bloody klutz! Here, let me—"

"No, no, no! Really, it's fine!"

"No, it's _not_! I can't believe I was so dunce—"

" _Wait_." Hermione grasped Severus hard by both wrists and stared into his contorted, coloured expression, her own irises a sudden blaze of awareness. Their gazes locked, timid, yet aroused, acutely aware of the other's heavy breathing. If it was possible to perceive the other's furious heartbeats as well, the recognition would have surfaced upon their stunned, riveted faces. "You could've used a drying spell," she blurted out, eyes narrowing as they bore into his.

Severus reared back, his cheeks blotting with evermore mortification. The witch wouldn't lessen her grip, however, no matter how much he tugged for her to set him free. "I wasn't... I didn't... _Miss Granger_ ," he reverted to her surname with a defensive growl, trying to recover from said blunder, "I wasn't think—"

Severus found himself saved from what would have been a most humiliating explanation by the brazen young witch's next unexpected advance: Hermione threw herself at him, this time engaging his mouth with hers without timorous modesty or uncertainty as he had shown but with absolute rapture and certitude. She yanked his hands against her sweater—against her heaving, perfectly round breasts—and drove their heated bodies together, clearly aching and desperate to be touched.

"Miss Granger!" Severus inserted, flabbergasted, between several feverish kisses, "I really think we ought to—"

" _Go ahead_ ," she goaded, urging their lips apart for a moment.

Severus hadn't realised that she was clutching him by his robes until she let go and stepped back, knocking him off kilter. "What?" His voice was slight, an octave higher than before. He gaped as Hermione began disrobing in front of him.

Hermione lugged her tea-soiled sweater over her head. It slipped to the ground somewhere unnoticed. Her lush curls tumbled all around her face, beautifully framing her delightful, freckled features, rose-tinted cheeks, and slim shoulders. Much to Severus's astonishment, she was beaming from ear to ear, and it was then that he noticed that her lips were puffy from their fervid snogging.

"Kiss me, Severus," she breathed, moaned rather; Severus stared on, stumped, and yet, awakened, the only flinch of movement being his crinkled brow. "Touch me. Oh, go on! _Touch. Me_."

A shaky grunt escaped Severus's throat. "Erm, Miss Granger, are you sure—?"

" _Severus_ ," she implored, and the stammering wizard ceased to speak. Standing before him in her white-laced bra and jeans, Hermione closed the minuscule gap between them and brought their faces nose to nose. "When will you learn to call me Hermione?"

"I..." Severus's mouth dropped open. Stirred by the witch's gutsy display, and the high probability that she really _did_ lust for more of him, a modest smile—a fragment of hope—slowly framed his lips. "Now?" he offered forth, his voice hushed and countenance heartened by how Hermione's regard continued gleaming up at him.

Then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed Hermione again, his lips pressing gently but keenly, utterly ecstatic with how she responded back. He groaned lowly into her mouth and she echoed his gnawing needs, his yearning fancies that hadn't the temerity to be uttered before but were now finding their courage.

The feeling of being weightless lapped over Hermione once more. She floated with ease into Severus's arms, consumed, and was effortlessly picked up and carried a few steps to the desk behind her. Somehow, the books previously occupying Severus's reading station were dispersed, though Hermione was too preoccupied clasping to him to pay much attention to the whens or hows, yanking at pieces of his hair, pulling on the back of his neck to strengthen their lip-locking, stroking a sunken cheek, and wrenching uselessly at the buttons on the front of Severus's coat to undo their aggravatingly tight clasps. He sprawled her over top of his desk, spread her legs wide, and sunk his heat into hers, their bodies' urge to converge inconveniently separated by unwanted fabric.

Hermione felt the wizard's spindly digits unzip her jeans and slink inside her knickers, where they fondled between her folds and circled her clit. Dizzy, she let out a strangled cry and pounded the back of her head against the wood, her lower half vigorously pushing into Severus's hand, spurring him on.

"I have a theory," came an unexpected purr next to her ear.

Hermione raised her head and moaned as he nipped at a portion of her earlobe, her greedy hands scrambling for a zipper or buttons to unfasten Severus's trousers. Cursing her inability to quickly obtain what she sought, Severus helped the grumbling witch along, the soft chuckles he emitted as he did so coursing an inviting shiver down her spine. Hermione leaned back to stare into his face and breathed, with an unflappable smile, "Me, too."

That was as far as they got in discussing their conjectures, however, for Severus then entered Hermione, nestled himself snug and warm within her tight walls, and drove them hard and harmoniously until both were clawing, fighting for breath, and crying out in ecstasy.

* * *

"It's a good thing I brought you extra!"

Severus smirked at Hermione's light-hearted laughter, watching her slide away from him from his spot on a fine couch in front of the fireplace, the crackling embers every so often breaking the agreeable stillness that had configured between them. He could get used to this stirring visual of Hermione Granger...if he so dared.

Unawares of the wizard's quiet appraisal, and wearing nothing at all but for his sweeping robes, Hermione shimmied over to her satchel, which had been strewn across the floor a few feet from Severus's desk. The stark garb trailed on the ground behind her as she walked, her short, petite stature practically drowning in the material, but she didn't seem to mind all that much.

What was there to grouse about, after all? The two had gone at it like rabbits on Severus's desk an hour ago before disrobing themselves entirely and moving on to shag a second time on his carpet in front of the glowing hearth. Each mind-blowing copulation had been bloody spectacular, and Severus still hadn't quite worked out how they ended up on his floor; he vaguely recalled Hermione attempting to engage him in more elaborate discussions about these undisclosed theories they were devising about his miraculous healing shortly after their first round. Severus had swiftly lost track of what Hermione was rambling on and on about, however, too smitten with those swollen, delectable lips of hers that he was determined to taste again. And again and again his wish was granted.

Glimpses of Hermione's breasts and creamy white legs teased him from between the gaps in his robes, and Severus found his eyes unable to admire anything else but the fetching woman with the ferocious curls idly standing in the middle of his library. _Is this real?_ he couldn't help but wonder. Even as his dirty mind recalled lying on top of Hermione moments ago (and relishing how her eyes rolled back into her head and her emphatic shouts of his name might have shaken the book stacks were they not charmed to remain in place), Hermione's present bare self—a tousled, provocative sight—was a compelling wonder from whence he couldn't detach his gaze. How startlingly quick his entire world had switched on a galleon.

"Aha!" Hermione exclaimed, retrieving two bags of tea from inside one of the front flaps of her satchel with a triumphant grin. She waltzed back to him, dangling each in one hand.

Severus held out both Styrofoam cups that had been magically refilled with hot water and Hermione dropped one bag into each, plopping down on the couch and perching herself next to him again. She curled her body into a ball at the wizard's side, finding the perfect little nook underneath his arm.

"I see you come prepared. Well done."

"Thank you, _sir_ ," Hermione teased, giving her naked companion a wry grin that he matched. "I seem to be lacking in preparedness in less certified matters, though, and I think we must _both_ take the fault for it."

Severus quirked an eyebrow and eyed Hermione sidelong. "I hope you're not implying that I intended to spill your precious tea and, well, plan for the rest of what's ensued _here_?"

"But of course not!" she snickered, graciously accepting one of the cups from him.

"Because I can assure you, _Miss Granger_ ," he growled before taking a sip, " _that_ was most definitely an accident."

"If you say so."

Severus lowered his cup to present the gorgeous, spritely-appearing witch with his full-on attention. "So... You were saying?" he proposed, pushing the subject that they had both been sidestepping since Hermione's arrival; or, rather, they had been too immersed in getting physically intimate with one another to engage in other, more proper avenues.

Hermione, having taken an appreciative swallow of her tea, modified her cosy position so that she, too, could regard Severus fully. "Let's start with how you're feeling now."

Severus snorted into his cup, "Bloody spectacular. And you?"

A blush illuminated Hermione's already healthy-coloured cheeks. "I'm being serious, Severus. Do you feel improved at all?" She paused before adding, "I must admit, you do look and sound even better than you did when I first arrived."

Severus nodded and fixed her with a seemingly amused stare. "I wonder why."

"Honestly, though, do you?"

Not missing the liveliness in Hermione's questions, Severus's lips bent upwards. "Have I not made myself clear? Yes, I'm feeling better and better all the time, and _you_ seem to be the reason for these miraculous changes." At the puzzled expression that followed—the witch was evidently contemplating something substantial—Severus's smirk carried to his eyes. "So, what is the treatment you intend to propose, Miss Granger? Shagging on a more frequent basis?"

Hermione's thoughtful look lightened. "Would it hurt?"

Severus gave a nonchalant shrug. "I'm afraid it's not something I participate in often enough. I don't have any...what is it you young people might call this sort of engagement? 'Friends with benefits', perhaps?"

"Oh, do shut it," she huffed, though it came out more like a smothered laugh. She leaned into his side, crossed her arms over her fairly-endowed chest, and pursed her lips, eying her patient with more delicate consideration. "Is that how you see us: as future friends with benefits?"

Severus was taken aback by Hermione's question, for, all of a sudden, she sounded unsure. His left eyebrow arched higher still and his regard, too, turned as serious as hers. "I should think not. It wouldn't be professional, would it?"

"No...it wouldn't." Her mouth visibly slumped.

Watching the change to her attractive lips, Severus, in turn, pressed gently, " _Is_ there an 'us' somewhere in this equation?"

In an instant, Hermione lifted her head. "I... I'd like to believe there's the potential for something more. Do you feel the same?"

Severus's dark, moonless eyes trailed from Hermione to the centre of his steaming cup for a time. Soon, they fell back on her watchful, freshly angst-ridden face and continued, "Before I answer, Hermione, I must be certain: is that something you would _like_?"

His words were hushed, even a tad fearful in tone, urging Hermione to respond as adamantly as she could stress, "Yes, I believe I would. I _know_ I would. And you, Severus?"

Hermione was elated by the quiet but earnest answer he returned. "Yes...I most definitely would like that very much."

"Oh! Well...right then. It's settled!"

Giving a spirited bounce, Hermione nestled herself against Severus's lightly furred chest, smiling brighter than she ever had for several moments of silence. She couldn't assess Severus's stance to their carefree exchange, but she sensed his heart beating faster against her ear. It deepened the immense bliss that was now pouring over every part of her.

Then Severus's amused growl interrupted their brief bit of solitude. "That sounded more like a professional arrangement between colleagues rather than two people proposing to see more of each other."

Hermione broke up laughing and was enchanted to hear Severus joining in. "It did, didn't it?"

She contentedly peered up into Severus's composed face, agog by the confirmations it contained: he was no longer markedly pallid and sickly-looking but his complexion held an unmistakable healthier glow. The heaviness in his eyes, too, had lifted considerably, as if Nagini's venom and all the Dark Magic it likely contained had evaporated from within. _All at my intervention?_ she wondered curiously. Hermione reckoned it couldn't _all_ be the result of getting physical with the man—at least, hardly that alone—and wrestled with more of her formulating thoughts.

Severus, at last, brought it out of them both as they lay together naked on his couch, limbs happily intertwined. "You think this will cure me somehow: seeing more of you?"

The twinge of disbelief Hermione detected shook some of her own self-doubts, but she hurriedly rammed them to the back of her mind. "It's worth a shot, no? It's worked so far. My touch, my getting closer to you bit by bit, my smell..."

Severus's eyes flashed with the validation Hermione had been seeking and for which he had been keeping to himself. "How did you know that?"

"Your reaction to the tea the first time in my office... I hadn't considered until later on that you might be affected by my scent, seeing as I brewed it with my own hands. You had no reaction to—"

"To the potions you had sent out to a lab," he supported, and Hermione's grin broadened up at him.

"Correct."

"Or the muggle pills you prescribed that were made elsewhere."

"Exactly." Her rich, brown eyes made another one of their thoughtful studies of him. "I think it's why you've been struggling for so long, Severus. You've been without that which Dark Magic thrives on; that which must have been embedded in Nagini's attack."

Severus inclined closer in order to whisper faintly, his mouth inches from hers, "Tell me more."

Hermione held her ground, though her heart skipped faster. "Lack of true, genunine physical contact... Not having your needs met emotionally, physically..."

"Yes?" he persisted without blinking or breaking eye contact.

Hermione unknowingly licked her lips. "Not receiving human decency from another... Compassion... Attachment..."

"Love?"

Hermione hitched a breath. She hadn't anticipated that _he_ would put forth that weighty implication. It was a matter she had been willing to keep to herself, possibly forever, if Severus Snape didn't care for her in the same manner as she was coming to appreciate him. Her lungs seemed suddenly incapable of taking in air.

"Well, I... I wasn't going to - to go _that_ far if it didn't—"

"But you're right, Hermione," he interrupted in a low murmur, his words suddenly filled with longing. Hermione had never heard that tone from him before and it rattled her to the core. Her tumbling explanation frosted over at the declaration she couldn't believe she was now hearing. "The same wonders have been pressing on my mind. I... I've never quite felt this way about anyone before. _Ever_. In my entire life." He stopped short of finishing in order to stare deeper into Hermione's eyes a moment, thereby fastening their gazes together. "But these past weeks... Getting closer to you... Feeling your touch, your smell, your... Merlin, _everything_ about you!

"I'm in love with you, Hermione. Merlin help me, I don't know how or why I've fallen so hard for you, but you've been driving me fucking mad ever since I stepped into your office and, you, into my life!"

Hermione's mouth hovered between opening and closing, her lungs finally releasing her of their near suffocating grip. "You - You _have_?" she breathed, stunned to the quick.

" _Of course_ I ruddy well have." An abrupt scowl, along with a series of harsh lines, manifested on Severus's long face. "Have I just mucked up everything by telling you so?"

"No, no, Severus, you haven't at all! I just..." The excited nerves in Hermione's stomach were aflutter all over again as she stared gleefully back at him. "I just realised that I've been falling for you, too, Severus. For a _very_ long time."

Severus's worried, twisted frown and wrinkles dissolved into a relieved, easy-going smile. It not only lightened his entire face but his entrancing, lovely-set eyes as well. The visual left Hermione momentarily bereft.

"It's settled then," he affirmed after a drawn out pause.

Hermione echoed his sentiments through several excited giggles. "Yes, I suppose it is!"

With ease, Severus's forehead found Hermione's, and she farther reclined into him as he whispered a delicate question, "Why you?"

"I... I hardly know," she confessed, "but I welcome us taking our time in finding out."

Severus gave a satisfied smirk that Hermione welcomed. "In that case, may I?"

"You may."

Severus leaned in for another amorous kiss, ensuring its longevity and intention. _Who would have thought_ , he pondered before her flavour, aroma, and touch overpowered his senses, _that Hermione fucking Granger would be my cure, and my possible beloved, at long last?_

* * *

 **A/N #2 : Thank you for reading, and a last BIG thank you to those who review at the end of it all.**

 _ **Until next time!**_


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